Saturday, August 13, 2005

Swapan Dasgupta, the RSS stooge?

Swapan Dasgupta's column that has caused a furore in the parliament has nothing extraordinary about it. One has to agree that it's not a piece of good journalism.

Rightly the Speaker has rubbished it with 'the same contempt it deserves' (that's what Somnath Chatterjee said). Most of the readers and journalists would share the same feeling.

The politicians are bound by their party's ideology. In the past the role of Shiv Sena's Manohar Joshi and Kesri Nath Tripathi (Speaker of Uttar Pradesh Assembly) raised many an eyebrows.

But a journalist should not be biased to such an extent that his columns begin propaganda for a party. Swapan Dasgupta seems to be amongst those opportunists for whom journalism is just a tool to promote themselves.

There are a few examples of journalists taking to party ideologies and propogating them for personal gains. Even Chandan Mitra had a sudden change of heart but that was understandable as he saved his newspaper. But writers like Udayan Namboodiri and Swapan Dasgupta wear the Khaki shorts openly. This is trash journalism that needs no comment.